Messianic Ideas and Movements in Sunni Islam

By Yohanan Friedmann

Expectation of a redeemer is a widespread phenomenon across many civilizations. Classical Islamic traditions maintain that the mahdi will transform our world by making Islam the sole religion, and that he will do so in collaboration with Jesus, who will return as a Muslim and play a major role in this apocalyptic endeavour.

While the messianic idea has been most often discussed in relation to Shi‘i Islam, it is highly important in the Sunni branch as well. In this groundbreaking work, Yohanan Friedmann explores its roots in Sunni Islam, and studies four major mahdi claimants – Ibn Tumart, Sayyid Muhammad Jawnpuri, Muhammad Ahmad and Mirza Ghulam Ahmad – who made a considerable impact in the regions where they emerged. Focusing on their religious thought, and relating it to classical Muslim ideas on the apocalypse, he examines their movements and considers their achievements, failures and legacies – including the ways in which they prefigured some radical Islamic groups of modern times.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oneworld Academic
• Release date: Jun 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9780861543120

Yohanan Friedmann

Yohanan Friedmann is Max Schloessinger Professor Emeritus of Islamic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Professor at Shalem College, Jerusalem. In 2003 he received the Landau Prize in the Humanities, and in 2016 he was awarded both the Israel Prize for Near Eastern Studies and the Rothschild Prize in the Humanities. His publications include Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi and Tolerance and Coercion in Islam.

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Contents

Preface

Chapter 1: Mahdī,Jesus and dajjāl: The apocalyptic drama in Sunnī religious thought

I

Portents of the Hour (ashrāṭ al-sāʿa)

II

Jesus and the mahdī – a disputed identification

III

The dajjāl, Jesus and the destruction of Judaism and Christianity

IV

The descent of Jesus in Qurʾānic exegesis

V

Jesus and the mahdī in historical times

VI

The mahdī

VII

The mahdī in Muslim creeds

VIII

Mahdīs in history

IX

Contemporary trends

X

Summing up

Chapter 2: Ibn Tūmart, the mahdī of the Almohads (al-Muwaḥḥidūn)

I

Biography and hagiography

II

Ibn Tūmart’s manifestation as the mahdī and his denunciation

III

Organization and discipline

IV

The belief system of Ibn Tūmart

V

The polemics of Ibn Tūmart and his jihād

VI

Non-Muslims in Ibn Tūmart’s thought

VII

The reception of Ibn Tūmart

Excursus: The face covering of the Almoravids

Chapter 3: The Mahdawī movement in India

I

Hagiography and history

II

The nature of Jawnpūrī’s religious claim

III

Sayyid Muḥammad Jawnpūrī and the Prophet

IV

Religious exclusivity and hijra

V

Extreme asceticism

VI

Mahdawī jihād

VII

Religious knowledge versus mystical ecstasy

VIII

The Mahdawiyya: general considerations

Chapter 4: Muḥammad Aḥmad, the Sudanese mahdī

I

Biography

II

Muḥammad Aḥmad’s religious thought

III

Asceticism and hijra

IV

Religious exclusivity and jihād

V

Muḥammad Aḥmad, his associates and General Gordon

VI

Legal pronouncements and social issues

VII

Ritual in Muḥammad Aḥmad’s movement

VIII

Qurʾān and ḥadīth in Muḥammad Aḥmad’s works

IX

Muḥammad Aḥmad and the religious establishment

X

Ambitions beyond the Sudan

XI

Some general characteristics of Muḥammad Aḥmad’s thought

Chapter 5: The mahdī controversy in modern Muslim India

I

A brief introduction

II

The bloody mahdī

III

The peaceful mahdī

IV

Indian Muslim opponents of the Aḥmadiyya

V

The mahdī demystified

VI

Modern critique and debunking

VII

Mawdūdī’s potential mahdīs and their failures

VIII

Mawdūdī’s traditional Jesus, modern mahdī and modern dajjāl

IX

The diversity of messianic thought among Indian Muslims

Chapter 6: Concluding observations

I

Eschatological versus non-eschatological mahdīs

II

Motivation and appointment

III

Sources of inspiration

IV

Exclusivity

V

Hijra

VI

Jihād

VII

Mahdīs and prophets

VIII

Achievements

IX

Sunnī and Shīʿī mahdī

Bibliography

Preface

Expectation of a redeemer is a widespread phenomenon in many civilizations. The hidden, innermost thoughts and aspirations of a civilization can be gauged from its description of its forthcoming redeemer, of its messianic age. Like adherents of other civilizations, Muslims have also cultivated the hope that at some time in the future a redeemer will appear and transform the nature of human existence for the better. Classical Islamic traditions maintain that this redeemer will establish justice where injustice and oppression prevailed, will destroy Judaism and Christianity, transform Islam into the sole religion, bring about religious uniformity in the world and cause Islam to reign supreme. He will attain this goal in collaboration with Jesus who will return to this world as a Muslim and play a central role in this apocalyptic endeavour.

Contrary to current scholarly ethos which values comparative studies, this work will not attempt to compare the Muslim mahdī movements and their ideas with messianic movements in other faiths. The amount of material on Muslim movements which needs to be surveyed, analysed and interpreted is enormous and even this material could not be used in its entirety in the preparation of the present work. I have therefore preferred to concentrate on the main purpose of the book rather than engage in comparisons with other civilizations. There will of course be a comparison of the Sunnī Muslim mahdīs with each other. This is the focus of the last chapter of the book.

In choosing to include some of these Sunnī mahdī claimants in my analysis, I am not passing judgment on the sincerity or otherwise of that person’s messianic claim. Anyone who advanced a claim to be a mahdī, convinced a substantial number of people to accept it and left behind documentation which enables us to study his thought may be a mahdī for the purposes of this study. One thinker whose thought I have analysed does not fit this definition: Abū al-Aʿlā Mawdūdī (d. 1979) developed a theory relevant to the mahdī phenomenon, but as far as I know was not a messianic claimant himself. I also need to say that as a matter of principle I do not speak of mahdīs and "pseudo-mahdīs".¹

No messianic claimant so far has been able to deliver on his promises and therefore all claimants are "pseudo-mahdīs" in a significant sense.

There have been numerous mahdī claimants in the Sunnī branch of Islam and it is not possible to discuss all of them within the framework of this work.²

For the purpose of the present book, I have chosen to deal with four messianic claimants from different periods and different regions. The North African Ibn Tūmart (d. 1130) and the Indian Muslim Sayyid Muḥammad Jawnpūrī (d. 1505) operated in medieval times and under Muslim rule. In the endeavour of the Sudanese mahdī Muḥammad Aḥmad (d. 1885), anti-British struggle was paramount and intimately related to his religious thought. The messianic claim of Mīrzā Ghulām Aḥmad (d. 1907) and the controversy concerning the nature of the mahdī in modern Muslim India transpired under British rule and included extensive polemics against Christianity and the Christian missionaries in India, but in the main did not entail anti-British activity. The substantial differences between these mahdīs are a good example of the interpretative possibilities available to Muslim thinkers and religious leaders who want to use classical Muslim thought and tradition, and reinterpret them in a manner appropriate for their time and place.

Since the idea of the mahdī in the Shīʿa branch of Islam has been subject of extensive research, the focus of this book is the messianic idea in the Sunnī branch, which has received much less attention. The various chapters will touch upon the political history of the Sunnī mahdī movements only to the extent that this is essential for the understanding of their religious thought. The mahdīs who had political significance, such as Ibn Tūmart and the Sudanese mahdī Muḥammad Aḥmad, have been frequently studied with their political and social perspectives in mind. Their religious thought, on the other hand, has received less attention. This will be the principal concern of this book. Wherever possible, there will be an attempt to relate the mahdīs’ thought to classical Muslim ideas on the apocalypse. In order to make this feasible, the first chapter of the book will survey and analyse the main elements of classical Muslim thinking on the appearance of the mahdī and the related apocalyptic drama.

The mahdī idea is usually associated with Shīʿī Islam and there is an enormous amount of research on the Shīʿī view of apocalyptic redemption. The centrality of the mahdī idea in Shīʿī thought – both medieval and modern – is beyond question. Its contemporary centrality can be gauged from the fact that article 5 of the Iranian constitution of 1979 implies that the government of the just and God-fearing jurisprudent (faqīh-i ʿādil o muttaqī) – meaning the present government of Iran – will last only until the manifestation of the mahdī.³

It is also reflected by the existence of dedicated institutions in Iran and Iraq which produce a constant stream of books on the mahdī and his importance. Some scholars dedicate their books to the mahdī and even ask him to accept their works. It is, however, noteworthy that according to many Shīʿī scholars, the mahdī idea is not specifically Shīʿī: it belongs to Islam in general. Numerous books by Shīʿī scholars have been written in recent years in order to advance the notion that the mahdī idea is common to both major branches of Islam. Some writers even consider it as a possible tool for rapprochement between the Sunna and the Shīʿa.

The perception of the mahdī idea as primarily a Shīʿī one is among the reasons that pertinent Sunnī ideas and the numerous Sunnī claimants have received much less attention. This imbalance needs to be redressed. Goldziher – and Friedländer before him – asserted that "in Sunnī Islam the pious awaiting of the mahdī never took the fixed form of dogma".⁴

This view is correct in the sense that it does not appear in the classical compendia of articles of faith (ʿaqāʾid),⁵

but this should not be understood to mean that the idea has little importance in Sunnī Islam. While some Sunnī scholars took pains to undermine the mahdī traditions and even considered them unreliable, numerous Sunnīs made messianic claims throughout Islamic history. None of them commanded universal acceptance, but the mahdīs made considerable impact in the regions where they emerged. In two major cases – Ibn Tūmart and Muḥammad Aḥmad – they managed to establish political units. The Almohad empire lasted for about 140 years; the state established by the Sudanese mahdī lasted for eighteen years only, but during these periods both movements produced Muslim regimes which are highly significant for the evaluation of radical Muslim movements and their objectives in modern times.

The apocalyptic drama also has modern relevance. A large number of contemporary Muslim writers have interpreted various details of the apocalyptic drama as relating to modern personalities and situations. Both Sunnī and Shīʿī writers have interpreted events and personalities in the apocalyptic drama as relating to contemporary events. The evil participants in that drama – mainly the dajjāl – are identified with oppressive rulers in modern times, as well as with communism, capitalism, materialism, Zionism and the United States of America. Perhaps the most bizarre attempt at actualization of the apocalyptic drama was the Nazi idea to identify the coming of Hitler with the second coming of Jesus and to identify the false messiah (dajjāl) with a monstrous Jewish king, to be killed by the new incarnation of Jesus – Adolf Hitler.⁶

The belief systems analysed in this book (except the Aḥmadī one) provide us with historical depth for understanding radical movements in modern Islam. The excommunication (takfīr) of opponents, the uncompromising imposition of the sharīʿa in its literal interpretation (which was also the hallmark of the Khawārij), the demand of absolute obedience to the leader, the demand to leave one’s place of residence and to perform hijra to the area under the jurisdiction of the radical groups – all these exist in one or more of the mahdī groups and prefigure what we see in some contemporary radical movements. The recurrent appearance of mahdī movements serves as a reminder that radical interpretations of Islam appeared time and again in Muslim history, but so far have not achieved enduring success.

The planning of this book went through several stages. Looking at the research works devoted to Ibn Tūmart – and especially at the seminal article of Goldziher which was published in 1887 before any of the Almohad books were in print and which was therefore based solely on manuscripts – I was reminded of the pre-Islamic poet ʿAntara b. al-Shaddād who said in the first hemistich of his famous ode: "Have the poets left anything to be patched up … (hal ghādara ’shshuʿarāʾu min mutaraddamī …)?" Consequently, I doubted whether I should include a chapter on Ibn Tūmart in this work. After consulting several colleagues, however, I came to the conclusion that a book on the mahdī idea in Sunnī Islam cannot stand without a chapter on Ibn Tūmart. I am apparently taking my lead from ʿAntara who wrote his extensive ode though he doubted whether his predecessors left him with anything new to say.

The decision on Muḥammad Aḥmad, the Sudanese mahdī was easier. Though there is plenty of research on his movement, most of it is devoted to its political and military aspects and not to the religious thought which is the focus of my work. The Mahdawī movement in medieval India and the controversy relating to the nature of the mahdī in modern Muslim India did not raise problems of this sort at all: research which has been devoted to these topics is much less extensive.

I used some of the material included in this book in the first Al-e Ahmad Suroor Memorial lecture (Some aspects of the Messianic idea in Sunnī Islam) which I delivered at the Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi on 16 October 2008. An edited version of the lecture was published in The Third Frame: Literature, Culture and Society 2 (2009), pp. 1–23. I wish to thank Professor Mushir al-Hasan of blessed memory for inviting me to deliver the lecture. On 9 May 2016, I delivered the 18th Zalman Chaim Bernstein memorial lecture (in Hebrew) at the Shalem College in Jerusalem on The messianic idea in Islam. I wish to thank Vice President Dr Dan Polisar for inviting me to do so.

Most of the book was written in the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem and in the British Library in London. I thank the staff of both libraries for their efficient help over the years of writing it.

My thanks go to Ella Landau-Tasseron who read Chapter 1 and suggested significant improvements. Eyal Ginio provided me with information on attitudes to the Sudanese mahdī in the Ottoman empire. Muzaffar Alam, Albert Arazi, Meir Bar Asher, Yoram Bilu, Sujata Ashwarya Cheema, Marc Gaborieau, Isaac Hasson, Etan Kohlberg, Sivan Lerer, Aharon Maman, Maria Pakkala, Frank Stewart, Sara Sviri and Nurit Tsafrir helped me in various ways. I am indebted to the anonymous reviewer for his thoughtful comments, to Elizabeth Hinks for her attentive and professional copy-editing, and to Paul Nash for guiding the book through the production process. Jonathan Bentley-Smith deserves my gratitude for expeditiously seeing the book through the review process. It goes without saying that any errors of fact or infelicities of style are solely my responsibility.

Yohanan Friedmann

Jerusalem, May 2021

Notes

1

This is the term used by Yoginder Sikand in his work about messianic movements in modern Muslim India.

2

By way of example, I would like to mention the several North African and Andalusī mahdīs analysed in the seminal work of Mercedes García-Arenal, the modern Indian mahdī movements described by Yoginder Sikand and the group of Juhaymān al-ʿUtaybī which took over the mosque of Mecca in 1979.

3

"During the Occultation of the Walī al-ʿAṣr (may God hasten his release), the wilāyah and leadership of the Ummah devolve upon the just (‘ādil) and pious (muttaqī) faqīh, who is fully aware of the circumstances of his age; courageous, resourceful, and possessed of administrative ability, will assume the responsibilities of this office in accordance with Article 107." Article 107 describes the procedure for electing the leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

4

Friedländer, Die Messiasidee im Islam, p. 15; Goldziher, Introduction, p. 200. See a survey of the early research on the topic and a critique of it in D. Cook, Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic, p. 30.

5

See the discussion of this in Chapter 1, at notes 133–134.

6

Motadel, Islam and Nazi Germany’s War, pp. 89–90.

1

Mahdī, Jesus and dajjāl: The apocalyptic drama in Sunnī religious thought

I Portents of the Hour (ashrāṭ al-sāʿa)

The Qurʾān contains numerous verses of eschatological content and the Day of Judgment plays a cardinal role in it,¹

but the messianic idea in Islam cannot be directly derived from the Qurʾān. The Hebrew word mashiʾaḥ (Aramaic: meshiḥā), from which the English Messiah and Messianism are derived, appears several times in the Muslim scripture in the form al-masīḥ, but it seems to have been used as a proper name of Jesus rather than as a title with eschatological content. In Hebrew, the term means a personality symbolically anointed with oil in preparation for a sacred duty or a dignified position of leadership. Classical commentators on the Qurʾān tend to seek an Arabic etymology for the word and maintain that it means someone whom Allah blessed or purified from sin. Even those who are aware of the word’s Hebrew or Aramaic extraction maintain that it is a proper name which was arabicized like the names of other biblical prophets, such as Ismāʿīl (= Yishmaʾel) or Isḥāq (= Yizḥaq).²

In the vast corpus of Muslim prophetic traditions, known as the ḥadīth, the situation is different. The mahdī is not mentioned in the celebrated collections of Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī (d. 870) and Muslim b. Ḥajjāj (d. 875), but the Qaḥṭānī, another clearly messianic (South Arabian) figure, is mentioned by both.³

Other canonical collections of ḥadīth do include chapters on the coming of a redeemer; however, the term describing him is in the great majority of cases not al-masīḥ, but rather the original Arabic term mahdī, the rightly guided one. The idea of divine guidance (hudan) is central in the Qurʾān, but the passive participle mahdī is not Qurʾānic; nevertheless, it gained the upper hand in the Muslim descriptions of the messiah and served as the preferred title of messianic pretenders throughout Muslim history. The centrality of divine guidance (hudan) in Muslim religious thought, as well as the clearly Arabic provenance of the term, are the likely reasons for the prevalent acceptance of the term mahdī for the redeemer in the Muslim tradition.

According to the classical Muslim ḥadīth, the mahdī is part of an eschatological drama which will take place at some unspecified time before the Day of Judgment. His appearance is integrated into a series of wondrous, dramatic and terrifying events – Portents of the Hour – expected to precede and herald the Last Day (ashrāṭ al-sāʿa, āyāt al-sāʿa, al-fitan wa al-malāḥim):⁴

the sun will rise from the West; a huge fire will erupt in the Yemen in order to drive all humanity to the place of the Last Judgment; a frightful beast carrying Solomon’s ring and Moses’ staff will appear; a one-eyed false messiah called al-dajjāl will come forth, having the word infidel (kāfir) inscribed on his forehead; the earth will collapse in the East, in the West and in the Arabian Peninsula; there will be a solar eclipse; the Euphrates will recede, revealing a mound of gold; Gog and Magog will be freed from their chains in the East and move West. Muslims will fight the Indians,⁵

the Turks⁶

and the Jews.⁷

Constantinople will be conquered. All these events will take place at a time characterized by senseless killings, religious instability, prevalence of infidelity over belief and a disproportionately high number of women in the population. People who were believers in the morning turn infidels by nightfall. All normalcy will come to an end. Facing these trials and tribulations (fitan), the few remaining believers will be helpless; at most, they will attempt to seclude themselves on uninhabited mountaintops to save their faith.⁸

The nineteenth-century Egyptian scholar al-Ḥamzāwī (d. 1886)⁹

adds some modern woes to these classical descriptions of the ashrāṭ:

The Qurʾān is taken as something to be sung. It is sung in meetings, markets and coffee houses. Coffee houses are built in greater numbers than mosques which are places of worship, of remembering God and of useful knowledge – while [the coffee houses] are places of slander, defamation and vice. There is also smoking which came into vogue in these times. It is a blameworthy innovation in all religions because it distracts from remembering God, the Only One, the Judge. (ittikhādh al-Qurʾān mughannan yughannā bihi fī ṣudūr al-majālis wa al-aswāq wa al-qahāwā wa minhā ʿimārat al-qahāwā akthar min al-masājid allatī hiya maḥall al-ʿibāda wa al-dhikr wa al-fawāʾid wa al-qahāwā maḥall al-ghība wa al-namīma wa al-mafāsid wa minhā ma ḥadatha fī hādhā al-zamān min shurb al-dukhān fa-innahā bidʿa munkara fī sāʿir al-adyān li-annahu yulhī ʿan dhikr Allah al-qāhir al-dayyān.)¹⁰

The classical ashrāṭ constitute a catastrophic, frightful and awesome series of events immediately preceding the apocalypse and leading to it. We may note here that since the very beginning of apocalyptic literature in Islam, the expectation of these events should be seen against the background of a general philosophical underpinning: an ingrained pessimism regarding the development of Muslim (or generally human) history. The ḥadīth compilers may not have shared this interpretation; after all, the seemingly irreversible decline will eventually result in the eschatological triumph of Islam.¹¹

For the time being, however, things are moving from bad to worse. Ibn Māja has included in his Sunan a chapter entitled the adversity of time (shiddat al-zamān) which includes the following prophetic tradition:

This matter will increase only in adversity, this world will move only backward and the people will only become more parsimonious. The Hour will occur only when people are the worst and there is no mahdī except Jesus the son of Mary. (lā yazdādu al-amr illā shiddatan wa lā al-dunyā illā idbāran wa lā al-nās illā shuḥḥan wa lā taqūmu al-sāʿa illā ʿalā shirār al-nās wa lā al-mahdī illā ʿĪsā b. Maryam.)¹²

Or, in another formulation:

The best of my community is the generation in which I was sent, then those who follow them, then those who follow them. (khayru ummatī al-qarn alladhī buʿithtu fīhi thumma ’lladhīna yalūnahum thumma ’lladhīna yalūnahum.)¹³

The latter ḥadīth has no apocalyptic significance; its main intention is to extol the Muslims of the Prophet’s generation, and to assert that Islam started its existence at the pinnacle of glory, to be followed by an irreversible decline. Nevertheless, it should be read in conjunction with traditions which give historical substance to the deterioration of Islam after the Prophet’s death. The political instability of the caliphate, best exemplified by the murder of three of the righteous caliphs and the various struggles which plagued Muslim history in the first century AH and – significantly enough – are also called fitan, must have contributed to the idea according to which the deterioration of the Muslim community and the countdown to the eschaton started almost immediately after the emergence of Islam. In several of these traditions negative and positive apocalyptic events – such as the conquest of Constantinople – are mixed with actual historical events from the earliest Muslim period. In one tradition, a mysterious person clad in white tells the Muslim participants in a raid on Ṭawāna:

Be steadfast, because this is a community receiving [divine] mercy. God decreed for it five tribulations and five prayers. I said: Name them for me. He said: … One of them is the death of their Prophet … then the murder of ʿUthmān … then the rebellion of Ibn al-Zubayr … then the rebellion of Ibn al-Ashʿath. Then he turned around saying: "[Only] misfortune (al-ṣaylam) remained, [only] misfortune remained …"¹⁴

Other lists of Portents of the Hour also include both negative and positive events: the death of the Prophet, the conquest of Jerusalem, the settlement of the Muslim community in Syria, a dissension which will afflict every Arab house and a truce with the Byzantines.¹⁵

A general observation about the nature of the classical apocalyptic literature is in order here. As is well known, the decades of Islamic history which followed the death of the Prophet in 632 CE were characterized by unprecedented military triumphs. The resounding victories of the Muslims and the phenomenal expansion of Muslim rule over huge areas of the Middle East and North Africa could easily be seen as very positive developments and even signs of divine support for Islam. Nevertheless, the Muslim apocalypticists completely ignore these positive features of early Islamic history – except for the conquest of Jerusalem which is interpreted as a portent of the Hour – when they describe the first century of Islamic history as a period of deterioration of Islam and as a countdown to the imminent end of the world. It is as if the classical historians of early Islam and the apocalypticists operate in distinct, disconnected spheres which are unaware of each other. The conquests of the seventh century CE were accomplished simultaneously with the internecine struggles and the perceived moral deterioration which plagued the Muslim community, but only these negative aspects of early Muslim history are taken into account when the apocalypticist makes his gloomy predictions. The apocalypticist’s disregard of the Muslim military successes seems to be a result of ingrained asceticism, disregard for worldly achievements, disdain for this world, absolute concentration on promoting the religious standards and bemoaning their deterioration.

Both the Qurʾān and the classical collections of ḥadīth can easily be used to substantiate the belief in the proximity of the apocalypse. The expected Hour (al-sāʿa) is mentioned in dozens of Qurʾānic verses. The very famous tradition according to which the Hour is as close to Muḥammad’s mission as his two fingers are to each other¹⁶

points in the same direction. This motif is further developed in the earliest collection of apocalyptic traditions, the Kitāb al-fitan by Nuʿaym b. Ḥammād (d. 844). Nuʿaym adduces several traditions listing the earliest fitan which will adversely affect the Muslim community. Some are phrased in general, vague terms and include unspecified tribulations, plagues and internecine struggles in the Muslim community. Others include clear political advocacy, such as the tradition according to which "people will live in prosperity as long as the kingdom of the ʿAbbāsīs is not toppled; when it is toppled, they will experience tribulations (fitan) until the rising of the mahdī" (lā yazālu al-nās bi-khayrin fī rakhāʾ mā lam yunqaḍ mulku banī al-ʿAbbās fa-idhā ’ntaqaḍa mulkuhum lam yazālū fī fitan ḥattā yaqūma al-mahdī).¹⁷

In this way Nuʿaym b. Ḥammād creates the impression that almost the whole Muslim history, beginning with the Prophet’s death, is a prelude to the apocalypse.¹⁸

Similar traditions appear in the Ṣaḥīḥ of al-Bukhārī, in the Sunan of Ibn Māja and in al-Naysābūrī’s al-Mustadrak.¹⁹

The idea is mentioned in numerous apocalyptic works and we shall see a much more developed version of it in our analysis of the thought of Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān in Chapter 5.²⁰

II Jesus and the mahdī – a disputed identification

Three figures play major roles in Muslim eschatology: the dajjāl, Jesus and the mahdī. Muslim traditions vary concerning the identity of the latter and it stands to reason that his identity changed because of considerations of politics or religious polemics. Several early collections of ḥadīth – compiled between the ninth and the eleventh century CE but evidently including much earlier material – maintain that "the mahdī is none else than Jesus" (lā al-mahdī illā ʿĪsā);²¹

or, in another formulation, "the mahdī is Jesus b. Maryam".²²

A tradition related on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās maintains that "the mahdī is one of us and he will hand over [his office?] to Jesus the son of Mary"(al-mahdī minnā yadfaʿuhā ilā ʿĪsā b. Maryam …).²³

However, the identification of Jesus with the mahdī eventually lost currency and was even declared spurious by several medieval scholars of ḥadīth.²⁴

Jesus’ role as the mahdī must have been embarrassing to Muslims in their polemics with Christianity, though most traditionists held that Jesus would be a Muslim when he descends to earth for the second time.²⁵

David Cook has convincingly argued that the identification of Jesus with the mahdī was renounced because Muslims felt ill at ease having an eschatological hero who was also the god of another faith.²⁶

It is certainly not possible to agree with Zniber who argues that the prevalent view among Muslim scholars is that the mahdī is identical with Jesus.²⁷

Nevertheless, some scholars attempted to maintain the authenticity of this ḥadīth by giving it a restrictive interpretation. Al-Qurṭubī (d.1273), for instance, devotes to this issue an extensive passage in which he asserts that lā al-mahdī illā ʿĪsā stands in contrast with numerous relevant traditions, has been transmitted by unreliable people and is therefore not authentic (lā yaṣiḥḥu). At the end of his discussion al-Qurṭubī tries to save the ḥadīth by providing it with a restrictive interpretation, saying that "there is no perfect mahdī except Jesus" (lā mahdī illā ʿĪsā kāmilan),²⁸

but the thrust of his discussion is against its acceptance.²⁹

In al-Manār al-munīf, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 1350) rejects the lā mahdī illā ʿĪsā b. Maryam ḥadīth because it is based on a weak isnād while the other traditions on the identity of the mahdī have a stronger one.³⁰

But later in the discussion he mentions a view – without identifying its supporters – according to which the authenticity of the ḥadīth can be accepted if interpreted as meaning that

there is no mahdī in reality except Jesus, even if there are other mahdīs. [This usage is the same] as when you say that there is no knowledge except the useful and there is no property except what protects its owner’s honour. In the same way, it is correct to say that "Jesus the son of Mary is indeed the mahdī, meaning the perfect, the infallible one." (fa-yaṣiḥḥu an yuqāl: lā mahdī fī al-ḥaqīqa siwāhu wa in kāna ghayruhu mahdiyyan. kamā yuqāl: lā ʿilma illā mā nafaʿa wa lā māla illā mā waqā wajha ṣāḥibihi. wa kamā yaṣiḥḥu an yuqāl: innamā al-mahdī ʿĪsā b. Maryam yaʿnī al-mahdī al-kāmil al-maʿṣūm.)³¹

This means that there is more than one mahdī and Jesus is the perfect one. Another view is expressed by Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm: the mahdī does not have to accomplish his tasks in the whole world. If he appears in a certain place and accomplishes what the prophetic ḥadīth expects of him, he is to be accepted. This implies that each geographical region can have its own mahdīs.³²

The view of al-Barzanjī (d. 1764) is ambivalent: on the one hand he suggests that the ḥadīth means that "if we say that Jesus is the mahdī’s wazīr, no word of his [can be accepted] unless he consulted Jesus". This means that Jesus and the mahdī are two different personalities. But immediately after saying that, and following the view of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, he gives an alternative interpretation according to which "there is no absolutely infallible mahdī except Jesus" (lā qawla li-’l-mahdī illā bi-mashwarat ʿĪsā … in qulnā annahu wazīruhu aw lā mahdī maʿṣūman kāmilan illā ʿĪsā …)³³

This means that Jesus is the perfect, infallible mahdī, but there may be other persons bearing the messianic title. In effect, both Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya and al-Barzanjī increase the importance of Jesus by implying that there may be numerous mahdīs, but Jesus will be superior to all.

At this point we need to address a further interpretation of the term mahdī which can be used to undermine the messianic role of Jesus and the mahdī idea in general. It is related to Qurʾān 3:46 and 5:110 according to which Jesus was miraculously given the ability to speak while he was still an infant in the cradle (mahd); this was the reason why he was called mahdī and not because of any messianic status.³⁴

The Shīʿīs also objected to the fusion of the mahdī with Jesus: the undisputed identification of the mahdī in the Twelver Shīʿī tradition with the twelfth imām made this fusion impossible. At times we also hear other reasons for the rejection of this ḥadīth, such as the unreliability of transmitters and the traditions in which Jesus and the mahdī appear as two distinct personalities in the apocalyptic drama.³⁵

Modern Muslim scholars normally take a similar approach.³⁶

However, the widespread criticism of the ḥadīth under discussion does not mean that Jesus lost his eschatological role completely: even without holding the messianic title, he continued to play a major part in the extraordinary events preceding the Day of Judgment.

Before we describe the eschatological role of Jesus, we need to analyse the reasons for the controversy regarding his messianic status and for the urge felt by numerous traditionists to strip him of the title of mahdī. We have already mentioned David Cook’s explanation of this³⁷

and it is now time to place the downgrading of Jesus in a wider context. At the present time I am not able to chart the timeline of this development, but it stands to reason that this downgrading is comparable to the process in which Muslim tradition gradually abandoned ritual details adapted from Judaism and Christianity and developed rituals that are distinctively Islamic. Changing the qibla from Jerusalem to Mecca, abandoning the Jewish fast on the tenth of the first month (ʿāshūrāʾ, yom ha-kippurim) in favour of Ramaḍān, and replacing the call to prayer with shofar or nāqūs by adhān with a human voice are cases in point. The belief in Jesus as mahdī is of course not a ritual, but it is part of a wider process in which Islam progressively dissociated itself from religious elements characteristic of Judaism and Christianity and developed a distinctive system of its own.³⁸

III The dajjāl, Jesus and the destruction of Judaism and Christianity

It is time now to describe the eschatological drama in greater detail. The amount of relevant material is enormous and it will not be possible to refer to all pertinent works. Because of the great variety and number of the relevant traditions, the chronology of the events is not lucid. The apocalyptic traditions are frequently phrased in an abstruse fashion and use outlandish vocabulary, probably intended to intensify the atmosphere of awe and mystery. In most cases, the story begins with the supernatural occurrences described earlier and the appearance of the false messiah (al-dajjāl), who will be

short, walking with his thighs wide apart, having curly hair, having one eye while the other is obliterated, neither protruding nor sunken. Should you become confused, know that your Lord is not one-eyed. (rajul qaṣīr afḥaj jaʿd aʿwar maṭmūs al-ʿayn laysa bi-nātiʾa wa lā jaḥrāʾ fa-in ulbisa ʿalaykum fa-’ʿlamū anna rabbakum laysa bi-aʿwar.)³⁹

In other descriptions, the dajjāl was born during the time of the Prophet and was a Jew, accompanied by Jewish troops (junūd min al-yahūd); sometimes he hails from the Jewish quarter of Marw or Iṣfahān.⁴⁰

In a very rare tradition, he is accompanied by Turks.⁴¹

In a fourteenth-century source, after the destruction of Baghdad by the Mongols, he is said to be accompanied by 70,000 Tatars⁴²

who replace the Jews of the classical traditions. It thus seems that the dajjāl’s entourage changes with the changing identity of the enemies of Islam. In some descriptions he claimed to be God while in others he asked the Prophet to testify that he (i.e., the dajjāl) was a messenger of God. He had a huge, frightful body that would fill his entire house. According to some traditions, God banished him to an island.⁴³

It is noteworthy that the classical traditions about the Jewish connection of the dajjāl inspired modern Muslim writers to identify him with contemporary Jews and with the modern State of Israel.⁴⁴

The Prophet will protect the believers from the dajjāl if he appears during the Prophet’s lifetime; if not, every believer will have to fend for himself by reciting the opening verses of Sūrat al-Kahf (Qurʾān 18) in the dajjāl’s face. The dajjāl will remain on earth for forty days, but each of these may last for a year, a month or a week. When this period comes to an end, Jesus will descend – next to the white minaret located east of Damascus.⁴⁵

The actions to be committed by Jesus after his descent will come as a surprise to those who know Jesus from the Qurʾān and from the Christian tradition. In the Qurʾān and parts of the ḥadīth literature, Jesus is described as one of God’s prophets; there are references to his pious mother Mary, to his miraculous birth, to his miracles and to the denials of his being a son of God. In Ṣūfī literature he is also a model of humility and an ascetic way of life.⁴⁶

In eschatological literature, his image undergoes a substantial change. In this literary genre, during his second coming, Jesus is expected to be a rather pugnacious figure of a warrior who will perform a number of violent deeds designed to bring about the ultimate defeat of Christianity and the triumph of Islam:

The Prophet said: "There was no prophet between me and him [i.e., Jesus]⁴⁷

and he is about to descend. You will recognize him when you see him: a man of medium height and bright complexion, wearing two pieces of cloth. His head seems to be dripping, though not wet. He will fight the people for the sake of Islam, will crush the cross, kill the swine and abolish the poll-tax. In his time, God will annihilate all religions except Islam. He will kill the false messiah and remain on earth for forty years; then he will die and the Muslims will pray at his funeral." (inna al-nabī … qāla: laysa baynī wa baynahu – yaʿnī ʿĪsā - nabī wa innahu nāzil fa-idhā raʾaytumūhu fa-’ʿrifūhu: rajulun marbūʿ ilā al-ḥumra wa al-bayāḍ bayna mumaṣṣaratayn ka-ʾanna raʾsahu yaqṭur wa in lam yuṣibhu balal fa-yuqātil al-nās ʿalā al-islām fa-yaduqqu al-ṣalīb wa yaqtul al-khinzīr wa yaḍaʿu al-jizya wa yuhlik Allah fī zamānihi al-milal kullahā illā al-islām wa yuhlik al-masīḥ al-dajjāl fa-yamkuth fī al-arḍ arbaʿīna āman thumma yutawaffā fa-yuṣallī ʿalayhi al- muslimūn.)⁴⁸

Not all collections of ḥadīth are so explicit regarding the military exploits of Jesus: some have a shorter version which metaphorically mentions the breaking of the cross, the killing of the swine and the abolition of the jizya. The commentators, however, usually follow the more detailed version of the ḥadīth and interpret this tradition in terms of real warfare: Jesus is expected to fight the people for the sake of Islam until Allah annihilates in his time all the religions except Islam.⁴⁹

In one place, the text of the tradition is uncertain: some editions read yaḍaʿ al-jizya (he will abolish the poll-tax) while others have yaḍaʿ al-ḥarb (he will abolish war).⁵⁰

In Krehl’s edition of Bukhārī’s Ṣaḥīḥ we have yaḍaʿu al-ḥarb in one place and yaḍaʿu al-jizya in two places.⁵¹

In one Egyptian edition, we have yaḍaʿu al-jizya in the text and yaḍaʿu al-ḥarb as a variant on the margin.⁵²

The bilingual Arabic-English edition by Muḥammad Muḥsin Khān has yaḍaʿu al-ḥarb in the Arabic text, but translates "there will be no jizya".⁵³

The expression yaḍaʿu al-jizya is cryptic. Lexically it could mean that Jesus will impose the jizya⁵⁴

or abolish it. We need therefore to turn to the commentators in order to learn how it was understood. The meaning of abolition is prevalent and the commentators concentrate on the question, what are the reasons for the abolition of the jizya at the end of days? Abū Sulaymān al-Khaṭṭābī (d. 988) says that it could be understood in two ways. According to the first interpretation, the jizya will lapse because Jesus will force all people to embrace Islam; as a consequence, there will not exist any scriptuary liable to pay the jizya. The alternative explanation for its abolition assumes that the jizya was originally imposed on the scriptuaries in the interest of Islam, for the empowerment of Muslims, for buying horses (to be used in jihād) and for supporting the Muslim poor. In apocalyptic times Islam will have no adversary, and there will be abundant money for everyone; the reasons for levying the jizya will therefore exist no longer.⁵⁵

It is noteworthy that al-Khaṭṭābī considers the payment of the jizya a tool for the strengthening of the Muslims and their state rather than a means to humiliate the scriptuaries intimated in Qurʾān 9:29.

The Shāfiʿī scholar al-Nawawī (d. 1277) concurs with the view according to which the apocalyptic policies of Jesus will be uncompromising. He maintains that the sharʿī right of infidels to pay the jizya and retain their religion will lapse at the end of days. Even if they do pay the jizya, they will not be left alone: in contradistinction to historical times, Jesus will give them only the options of conversion to Islam or death (lā yaqbalu min al-kuffār illā al-islām wa man badhala minhum al-jizya lam yukaffa ʿanhu bihā bal lā yaqbalu illā al-islām aw al-qatl).⁵⁶

For al-ʿAsqalānī (d. 1449) and al-ʿAynī (d. 1453), the yaḍaʿu al-jizya ḥadīth entails additional problems. Al-ʿAynī deems it necessary to make it clear that this ḥadīth does not allow Muslims to break the crosses and kill the swines of the dhimmī Christians whose safety and religious freedom are guaranteed